It’s raining in Detroit today, but are the Kings putting away their umbrella? After today’s morning skate, Terry Murray indicated that the Kings will shake up their power play a bit tonight, going away from their traditional “umbrella” look and toward a style with more movement. It will be interesting to see how notable the changes are on the ice. After a 5-for-19 stretch on the power play, the Kings went 0-for-10 with the man advantage in their last two games. The Kings enter the game ranked 19th in the NHL in power-play efficiency, while Detroit ranks 16th in penalty-kill efficiency.

MURRAY: “We are changing it up, the one group with (Anze) Kopitar and (Drew) Doughty and Jack (Johnson). We’re going to change the setup in the offensive zone. I think you get to a point, sometimes, where change is very important. You get stale. You’re getting stationary, often, when you get so used to one setup. It’s a power-play look that I used years ago, when I was coaching in Florida. It’s a change. It gets the puck in different people’s hands. There’s more movement in it, and it gets you thinking. To me, with where we are right now, we’re a team that’s looking to make the automatic play all the time. You’ve got to get some thought back into it.”

Change that doesn’t involve line shuffling? Movement on the powerplay, eliminating the stationary set up along the half boards? Has Terry been reading our site? You may think I am shocked. I am not. I remain dubious. I have heard this type of talk from Terry Murray before. Here is the link to Terry Murray, The Big Tease before the season even started. Let me know when you are done reading and read the whole thing, including the links within the article…it’s important to see what he previously represented…I’ll wait…

See what I mean?

Am I encouraged? Sure. Do I believe he will do it? Yes, in the beginning, but when it doesn’t bring immediate results (the damn lighting in a bottle psychology that pervades nearly all of his changes), will it right back to the same old tired system?

Time will tell…in fact, the time is 4:30pm today. Grab a couple of beers. Should be fun to watch. GO KINGS!

I don’t have time right now to read the archive material, but I don’t care if he’s said it before, at least for one night, we don’t have to be subjected to the worst offensive PP structure I’ve ever seen….and that includes the players lack of judgment/awareness to move their darn feet and make things happen.

Boys and girls of this great site, we will be victorious tonight…..Why?…. Because our PP with “movement” will carry the day. It’s not particularly about the goal itself, it’s about momentum, aura, confidence, the ability to control and maintain the flow of the game, and when that happens, the “breaks” usually go your way. Goals and momentum, how can we lose? Time to get it done boys! Go King Go!!! Tonight is our night.

Anyone else catch the irony: Kopi, DrewD, and JMFJ were given the green-light to get creative. The others were to play the umbrella (“We are changing it up, the one group with (Anze) Kopitar and (Drew) Doughty and Jack (Johnson).” But the PP goal came from….the Umbrella Group.

Cruel, cruel irony….you know that will mark the end of the non-umbrella experiment.

————————————–

A little public penance on my part: DrewD has really turned his game around. Yeah, there was a colossal F’up against the Stars that cost us a goal. But he’s really playing with creativity, heart, and flair. I said some less than positive things on a fairly frequent basis earlier in the season. Maybe the concussion had a more profund effect than I recognized.

——————————————–

I love this tweet:
===
Buccigross: If Drew Doughty dedicates his life completely to hockey starting Friday, he could be Ray Bourque ll. He is stupid talented. (about 4 hours ago from Twitter for BlackBerry®, retweeted by DustinBrown23 and 38 others)
===

Did our Capitain just pass along some praise and push the motivation button? OOhhhhhh Yeaaaahhhh!